'That's a goal': With a bigger roster, Windham seeks to leave numbers issues in the past
Eleven players are needed to take the field under those famous Friday night lights.
The truth is far more are necessary in such a physical game.
Windham knows that fact well. The Bombers haven’t been able to complete all of their full schedule since 2019, with low numbers forcing them to cancel games in each of the last three seasons.
Windham coach Jake Eye hopes this is the year the streak ends.
"That's a goal," Eye said. "It's always a goal to play 10 games for us. You know, a lot of teams have goals of going to the state title game or winning the league, but one of our goals is to play a 10-game season, a legit 10-game season."
As summer turns to fall, the Bombers have 30 players, providing them a considerable cushion for the injuries that can take place throughout a season.
"Windham is small," Eye said. "We graduate 25 kids a class, so when you have a football team starting out with, especially in the second week of July, I had 30 kids at practice. That's not been the case for the last five or six years but, for us, we were excited to see that many kids, and I tell them daily, 'Listen, we need to bring more, we need to recruit more.'"
Windham also has far more size this year, offering hope this team will be better able to withstand the wear and tear of high school football, and Eye said he has also noticed a strong unity among his players.
"They're all good kids," Eye said. "They all have humility. They don't have big egos."
How did the Bombers roster rise up to 30 players?
Normally, it’s a large class that helps a program fix its numbers issues. That’s not necessarily the case with Windham this year. Indeed, the team has added just three freshmen (to go with five seniors).
The Bombers' rise included student-athletes coming back to Windham, such as quarterback Dylan McCune, who was at LaBrae last year, and Kaishawn Scales, who returned from Ravenna.
Other players like Louden Collins, Brian King and Xzavier Mosier were at Windham but didn’t come out for football last season.
Now, they’re back.
“Just they regretted not playing,” Eye said. “They watched the type of season we had, and I think with some of the leadership we had last year and the type of season we had, I think some of these guys thought, ‘You know what? We need to get to be a part of this.’”
Windham football schedule includes tough close to the season
Week 1: David Anderson (Aug. 18); Week 2: Rittman (Aug. 25); Week 3: at Jackson-Milton (Sept. 1); Week 4: at Tuscarawas Central Catholic (Sept. 8); Week 5: Aquinas (Sept. 15); Week 6: at Fairport Harding (Sept. 22); Week 7: St. John (Sept. 29); Week 8: at McDonald (Oct. 6); Week 9: at Mathews (Oct. 13); Week 10: Pymatuning Valley (Oct. 20)
After starting the season against three familiar foes, Windham is set to take on a new opponent in Week 4 as Tuscarawas Central Catholic replaces Southeast on its schedule. Eye acknowledged he doesn’t know much about the Saints, who finished 2-8 in 2022 and last had a winning season in 2014.
League play for the Bombers starts Week 6 with a trip to Fairport Harding. After playing the two Northeastern Athletic Conference teams it beat in 2022 — Fairport Harding (Week 6) and St. John (Week 7) — Windham finishes with the two NAC teams to which it lost last season, starting with an intriguing Week 9 battle against Mathews.
“Last year, Mathews put it on us a little bit, but I think they have that in the back of their mind,” Eye said. “That'll be a big one for us.”
The Bombers’ regular-season finale against Pymatuning Valley, which went 4-7 last year but 4-0 in the NAC, will be no less challenging.
“Pymatuning Valley is going to probably be better than they've been in a long time,” Eye said. “They're loaded, just what they did to us last year and from what I've seen that they got coming back. That running back is a junior. ... he is like a wrecking ball, and their freshman class is just dynamic.”
This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Jake Eye, Windham football chase 10-game goal
